Action Research project #3 Whole Brain Teaching

Dear readers, This year, the topic of my research project was prompted by two youtube videos I stumbled upon in August. As I was setting things up for this classroom, I was youtubing videos to brainstorm different routines I could add to our morning calendar time. After watching the two videos (which i've posted below) I went to their website was delighted to discover that this group has placed all of their material (over 10 e-books and all their training videos) on the web for free. I knew pretty early on this semester that I wanted to write an action research article on these knew techniques and try them first hand on my kindergarten students. I am so glad that I did! In the last eight years, this teaching technique has truly been fun and effective for myself and my students, and I will be using this technique for many years to come and encouraging my fellow teachers to try these new techniques out for themselves.Sincerely,Jessie Fishel

Total Participation Teaching Methods in the Elementary classroomreading and mathJessie FishelFall 2011AbstractMany programs claim to be brain based and provide tangible results in student content growth.This semester this researcher studied the Whole brain teaching method for seven months with a small class of private pre-school kindergarteners.The whole brain teaching method promotes students to learn material through visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and cooperative learning techniques.Students were given 70 vocabulary words to learn based off common core standards.At the beginning of the study the students on average knew 41/70 words ( 59%).At the end of the study the students had mastered 65/70 ( 93%) of the required vocabulary word list.Both the teacher and the students found the new teaching method to be highly effective and fun for learning both content and behavior management skills.Total Participation Teaching Methods in the Elementary Classroom for Reading and MathIn 1946 Edgar Dale developed and illustrated a diagram known as “the cone of experience” stating which methods of learning people preferred and felt were most effective for remembering information after a two-week time span.His research indicated that people felt they remembered a little of what they read, a little more of what they heard, a bit more of what they saw, half of what they heard and saw, most of what they said, and almost all of what they did and said.This cone of experience has inspired many teachers and college teacher education programs, and has spawned new curriculums, actualized cutting edge technology, and changed the way generations of educators, researchers, and learners respond to instruction.Many teachers work throughout their teaching careers to move away from teaching through basal textbooks and lectures, to a more hands-on, high student participation style of teaching.This paper is one elementary teacher’s quest on finding resources to encourage greater student participation and applying them in the classroom to measure learning results. Active LearningActive learning through hands-on participation is not a new concept.For thousands of years there was not a formal public school system.Schooling was done by family members in the home.Children would often shadow their parents lives and learn from day-to-day living.Traditions were often passed down through oral storytelling traditions.The Greeks and Romans record having public schools sometime around 300 AD... but for most parts of the world formal schooling was directly tied with religious instruction.It wasn’t until the 1800’s that most parts of the world began to embrace having a public school system.(History of)Active learning has been round for many years, but is sometimes seen as a challenge to execute in a classroom setting.In recent years, school systems have sought to improve student outcomes and teachers have been searching for effective teaching practices.Active learning has once again become a new popular teaching method to try out.To determine how it might be effectively used in today’s classrooms according to the research, a review of the literature was conducted.Literature ReviewSmith and Cardaciotto (2011) focused on active learning in large lecture classes. Both authors were teachers at the college level teaching two introductory psychology classes.For one class, the instructors taught using a traditional passive lecture style. For the second class, the instructors chose to teaching using active teaching methods (jigsaws, games, puzzles, crosswords, discussion groups, projects, etc).The teachers hypothesized that the active learners would show higher retention of material, higher test scores, more participation, and enjoy the class more than the traditionally taught class.Their case study showed that indeed there was retention of material, higher test scores, and more participation for the group using active learning. The college students surprisingly responded that they did not enjoy the active participation teaching style though... as it required more effort than a passive lecture-based classroom. The researchers related their results to broccoli, sometimes using the best teaching method doesn’t always make the classroom more enjoyable, just as eating broccoli is good for the body but not always an enjoyable part of dinner. Kagan (1995) discuses how students will learn a language in a more meaningful way when they are allowed to usethe language in a conversational use.Hearing English spoken to a large classroom group is not as interactive as having a person speaking to you during a conversation.Language is utilized more often in cooperative groups than during passive lecture classes, because the language skills are used more often, the ESL student will grow their language skills more rapidly. During lecture styles, a typical student in a classroom of 30 may only have one minute of output.When teachers facilitate lessons through the use of cooperative groups a student is able to have the same amount of interaction in less than two minutes of time.They can do in two minutes what used to take up to an hour to do in the classroom.Cooperative groups allows for easy acquisition of vocabulary and language forms.Whitehead (2011) reviewed popular literature about brain-based learning being an effective tool for teaching male students, studying a school in which the brain based methods were being used at an all boys private school in which all the staff members had been trained in methods tailored for their unique students learning needs. Following the review of popular gender learning studies, the author then reviewed the techniques used most often by staff members in their classroom.The research-based strategies used most often by these staff members included the following: * Teachers provided reading material based of students interests: newspapers, sports, computer magazines, action novels, etc * Use of more graphic organizers and storyboarding * More physical activities throughout the day * Using drama in the classroom to aid in learning * More hands on experiences * Use of debates in classroom discussions Chris Biffel a leader in the whole brain movement and a popular trainer for the method because of his Youtube training videos.From his book (2010) six techniques are described.First technique is how to grab the students attention quickly and refocus the students as needed.To get the students attention the teacher says “class” and the students are instructed to respond with “yes”.However, the teacher says “class” the students respond with “yes,” mimicking the teacher.For example the teacher would say “class, class, class” and the students would respond with “yes, yes, yes.” The second management technique is to combine hand actions, visual images, and daily practice to rehearse the classroom rules.The third method is known as “Teach – okay”.After a mini lesson, the teacher gives the command “teach” and students respond with “okay”as they turn to their partners and para-phrase the lesson. The fourth method is known as the scoreboard.The scoreboard is a behavior management game between the students and the teacher.Students get points by pleasing the teacher, while the teacher gets points for unpleasing behavior.The fifth method improves student participation through “practice cards”.Students each have a notecard with one side colored green, the other colored red. Teacher asks a series of yes/no questions to the students having them vote on their answers as a class. Teachers are to be able to gather knowledge about what the students know at a glance.The sixth method deals directly with building student vocabulary related to the state standards.Teachers present a concept on a state standard concept using kinesthetic hand motions and teaches students a quick one sentence quote defining the concept.Each concept has a visual image to prompt students on the vocabulary concepts meaning.McGuckin and Mabeen (2010) examined the use of using brain-based learning and applying it to the online classroom for college students. The paper reviewed literature that pointed out that brain-based learning should be personalized, speed of work unique for each student, require collaboration, provide a challenge although not overwhelming, and provide information though multiple modes of learning to create multiple neural pathways to help information retention. Bonnema (2009) broke down a review of the literature of the strategies supported by brain based research. Such topics included multiple intelligences, learning modalities, processing and encoding, capacity, socioeconomic factors, how long term memory works, and essential strategies for teachers to use to aid in transferring classroom instruction to long term memory. "Moving information from sensory input to permanent long-term memory storage is the goal of every educator. Modern neuroscience has established that dendrites, the communication arms between neurons in the brain, increase in both size and quantity in response to learning The more areas of the brain that are stimulated by incoming information, the more dendrite-neural connections are increased and strengthened, and the more interconnections across information in permanent memory are formed” (p. 21). The paper also sited Marzano's book "Classroom Instruction that Works" (2012) and identified nine categories of strategies that are found to be effective in the classroom.* Identifying similarities and differences * Summarizing and note-taking supports * Personalize information into smaller chunks for deeper understanding. * Homework is used for rehearsal of information * Use of cooperative learning to enhance learning of new information * Use graphic organizers to organize information * Setting objectives * Providing feedback * Generate and test hypotheses to support both inductive and deductive thinking * Using cues, questions, and advance organizers to develop interest and encouragedeeper connections to information (p. Introduction)Connell's review (2009) he defined the principles of brain-based learning. Leaning should be an attainable challenge where students feel free to experiment and try different approaches without fear of failure.Enriching environment helps children learn and develop. There are two different types of memory... spatial memory that builds relationships among facts, events, and experiences and taxon memory that is made of information learned through repeated practice. “Learning is both a conscious and an unconscious processes.Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral perception. Learning occurs when the left and right parts of the brain works together, they have different functions but they work together.Emotions are brain based, they are crucial in forming brain connections and reinforcing learning concepts.Information needs to be presented through patterns. The brain finds meaning in patterns.Make learning personal creates meaning for the student. The brain and the body needs to be engaged in learning. The brain learns, thinks, and feels simultaneously.” (p. 30) Bonomo (2010) wrote an article about “gender based differences in elementary education.” In general, the research pointed out 27 differences between the learning styles of boys and girls and how different hormones and development patterns leads to the differences we see in the maturity and learning styles of each gender. The paper then goes on to point out how brain based learning is ideal for both genders, especially boys, as brain based learning tends to be more kinesthetic, flexible, etc and plays to their learning strengths and not just their learning differences.All of these studies examined the need and the importance of a brain based approach to teaching and learning in the classroom.Brain based learning approaches leads to higher retention of material, higher test scores, and greater class participation.ESL students thrive in these classrooms as it allows them to use their language skills more often in two minutes of instruction, than they typically have opportunities to do so in 30 minutes of traditional teacher lecture style class instruction.Brain based learning uses both genders learning strengths, where as male students struggle more often in traditional lecture based classrooms. Brain based learning creates multiple neural pathways for information retention. Brain based instruction helps to transfer information into long term memory. Brain based learning acknowledges that a brain learns, thinks, and feels simultaneously.The research question: How effective is a whole brain teaching approach to learning common core standards?MethodologySchoolThe school is a private church-run daycare / preschool with two hundred students raging in ages 6 weeks old - fifth grade.In the building there are three classrooms devoted to schooling children academically...two half-day preschool classrooms taught by local public school teachers and the private all day kindergarten program taught by the researcher. Most of the students are white upper or middle class children.Most children live in two parent homes, few of the student dwell in apartments.The classroom used for this research uses the Abekka home school / private school curriculum which is similar in lesson layout to Everyday Mathematics where students practice all skills learned throughout the school year every day.ParticipantsThe classroom has five students, three five-year-old boys, one five-year-old girl, and one six-year-old girl.All the students are white, middle class, and from two parent households. ·Student A is a six-year-old girl who enjoys playing chase, board games, coloring, loving on stuff animals, and playing house or school.She is struggling with reading numbers1-100 and blending cvc words, but loves school and the learning process.·Student L is a five-year-old girl who entered kindergarten already having mastered writing numbers 1-100, writing the alphabet letters, and identifying letter sounds.She has successfully mastered blending cvc words and is working on cvcv and cvcc words.She is a very fast learner and extremely self motivated to learn on her own.She takes what she learns at school and applies them to her home environment.

·Student G is a five-year-old boy who stayed at home with his mom until this school year. He started the school year not being able to write his name, name letters, sing the alphabet song, write numbers, count, or name numbers 1-10.Student G is a very sweet child and has grown a great deal in the last five months both socially and academically. He has mastered writing his name and naming letters, and is now working on letter sounds.He is able to read numbers 1-10 and is able to add them using the touch math method.Student G has been slow to master academic skills as he tends to focus more on the hidden curriculum of school such as how to be popular. He is somewhat mischievous like the other boy students. ·Student J is a five-year-old boy who is very self motivated to learn. He is quick to master skills and enjoys to be challenged with independent work.Student J is read to a lot at home and has large vocabulary compared to other students his age.He is working on blending cvc words and simple addition.He is able to read and write his numbers 1-100.·Student P is bright, mischievous, kinesthetic, five-year-oldlearner with strong auditory skills. Although capable to complete the classwork independently, he struggles with staying on task and being motivated to do school work.He is working on cvcv words and simple addition.ProceduresAssessments. An oral test was given to students one-on-one over a list of reading and math related vocabulary words.Seventy six vocabulary concepts were included with in thisreview.Research-based strategy. Whole brain teaching was used in teaching the concepts, i.e., the.use of hand actions, teach and mirror, visual images, classroom management, and teaching strategies to peers. Six techniques from the BIffel book (year) were used.Gragging the student’s attention, practicing of the classroom rules, teach/okay, scoreboard, practice cards, vocabulary instruction where the teacher presents a state standard concept using kinesthetic hand motions and teaches students a quick one sentence quote defining the concept.Each concept has a visual image to prompt students on the vocabulary concepts meaning.There are a total of 76 core concept vocabulary words that students are expect to master. These words became the focus of the instruction.PretestIn October students were given an oral test by the teacher over the 70 vocabulary words they were to master.The test was presented over a period of ten days with seven words orally tested daily.During the pretesting period, The class was introduced to the new behavior classroom management techniques “class-yes”, “teach=okay”, “hands and eyes”, the scoreboard, and the use of practice scores.One new strategy was introduced each day of the week to add into our routines.ProceduresDuring the pretesting period, The class was introduced to the new behavior classroom management techniques “class-yes”, “teach=okay”, “hands and eyes”, the scoreboard, and the use of practice scores.One new strategy was introduced each day of the week to add into our routines.In late October, six vocabulary words were presented each week.Three words related to reading standards and three words related to math standards.As a part of our morning calendar routine students were shown the picture and the word, together we practiced a hand action to help us remember what the word meant, or an example of the word in use.A mini lesson was delivered on each concept by teaching the students what the word meant using exactly defined and clear short phrases.Students used the “teach-okay” method to re-teach the concept to their peers using the short phrases and hand actions as learning prompts.The last vocabulary words were introduced the first week of February.ResultsTo calculate the results, each student is examined separately to determine how many words had already been mastered before the new instructional methods and procedures. After applying the study methods for 5 months, a posttest was given. Appendix shows the results by word for each child. Table 1 shows the results for all five students.All students showed gains.Student A had the highest gain with 33; students J and L tied with gain scores of 16.Review of case studies resultsBeyond the new word growth, classroom management seemed to improve a great deal using the new behavior management techniques.The “class=yes” response was extremely effective for refocusing the students.Varying the techniques and phrases used during the techniques made the structure more effective (ex. saying “class, class, class” one time and switching to “classity class = yessity yess”).Varying the command made the technique a game and enjoyable for the students.“Hands & Eyes” was also extremely successful in getting all eyes on the board to focus on new important concepts.“Teach=okay” was more difficult to manage.Students with stronger communication skills tended to dominate the sharing time, while more passive students tended to speak in incomplete sentences and needed more encouragement to participate in the re-teaching/summarizing process.The practice cards worked well for the majority of students.Students were excited that they got to answer all the questions asked by the teacher (compared to the teacher calling on students at random).The cards also helped students fight the urge to shout out answers and upsetting their peers.The cards were more effective that the well known “thumbs up / thumbs down” technique as students had to choose and answer and could not answer both yes and no at the same time.The teacher had to be observant and identify students that were prone to struggle with the concept, for when they realize that most their peers are showing a different answer, they will swift change their answers to match the crowd.The scoreboard seemed to have little overall effectiveness and cutting down student silly off-task behavior (students that were on task before the management strategy was introduced were the same students that were successful during the scoreboard process).The scoreboard did raise students participation motivation… they were eager to encourage each other to participate to earn points to “beat the teacher”.The reward chosen was 10 minutes free computer time during free-choice centers.This strategy was fun to implement for both teacher and students.As a teacher I felt the students were more engaged to the lessons.Instead of spending my time nagging students by telling them what not to do (ex. “Don’t play with your shoes”, “Don’t bug your neighbors”, “Don’t talk to your neighbors”, “Pay attention to this lesson”, “Quiet please so I can teach!”)… the commands allowed me to more quickly and effectively grab their attention as a whole.It answered the question of what the students should be doing during the lessons (mimic my hand motions, listen to my words, repeat what we just learned, tell your neighbor what we just learned, when to look at the teacher, how to show the teacher you’re listening to her).Assigning hand actions and visual images did help aid students as prompts for learning new vocabulary words… and gave new “life” to my circle time mini lessons.Many of the students enjoyed the techniques so much, that when they pretended to play “school” during free choice centers, the students actively used the strategies with one another.Many of the other teachers I worked with also enjoyed the new strategies and their effectiveness and began using them with the rest of the kindergarten students.I would highly recommend these techniques to other teachers and I will continue to use them in the future.DiscussionI was extremely pleased with the vocabulary acquisition results of my kindergarten class.I was surprised at how well the Whole Brain Teaching method helped to close the learning gaps that existed within my class.The students enjoyed the new teaching method and I found the method fun, easy to use, and more effective than other learning structures I have used in the past.When the students would answer the vocabulary questions at the end of the new program, it was interesting to see how some students would use the hand symbol to remember the word, or reference the image from the mini poster on the word to help trigger the memory of the vocabulary word’s meaning.My findings from this research supported the various other case study reports.The new method helped vocabulary retention, allowed all students to participate frequently and apply the concepts rapidly, and both genders were successful during group time.There are many limitations of my study.This study was done with a very small class of five students, the smaller class size helped the students to focus on me as the teacher much easier than they would have in a typical class of 15 students.This school is a private preschool/daycare in a very well educated small city outside of Oklahoma City, there is very little social economic diversity among the students.In this classroom there were no English language learners nor students with special learning needs, I wonder what the results would have been for these subgroups of learners in a typical classroom setting. ReferencesBonnema, T. R. (November 15, 2009). Enhancing student learning with brain-based research (Master's thesis). Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED510039.pdfBonomo, V. (2010, Summer). Gender matters in elementary education: Research-based strategies to meet the distinctive learning needs of boys and girls. Educational Horizons, 88(4), 257-264. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ895692.pdfConnell, D. J. (2009, Fall). The global aspects of brain-based learning. Educational Horizons, 88(1), 28-39. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ868336.pdfKagan, S. (1995, May). We can talk: Cooperative learning in the Elementary ESL classroom. ERIC Digest. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED382035.pdfMcGuckin, D., & Ladhani, M. (2010, Summer). The brains behind brain-based research: The tale of two post-secondary online learners. College Quarterly, 13(3). Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ930389.pdfSmith, C. V., & Cardaciotto, L. (2011, January). Is active learning like broccoli? Student perceptions of active learning in large lecture classes. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 11(1), 53-41. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ915923.pdfWhitehead, D. (2011, July). Can neuroscience construct a literate gendered culture? English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 10, 78-87. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ944899.pdf

Program goals

Goal #1: Graduates of the program should be able to identify, analyze, and explain (a) successful curricular models and instructional strategies and explore the basis for their success, and (b) curricular and instructional problems impeding the improvement of learning and teaching in classrooms and schools and propose sound solutions.Goal #2: Graduates of this program should be able to monitor, evaluate, and suggest means to improve instructional practice, including the evaluation of educational outcomes and programs.Goal #3: Graduates of this program should be able to assume responsibility for the development, implementation, evaluation, and revision of curricula or programs of study in particular disciplines and/or for particular populations.Goal #5: Graduates of this program should be able to plan and conduct action research using sound theory and appropriate research designs to investigate educational questions related to the improvement of curriculum and instruction.

Reflection

This was such a fun action research project to implement in the classroom. The hand actions and visual prompts helped the students to master curriculum objectives efficiently. The behavior management component helped me get the class to refocus quickly after each activity or group interaction time. I will be using this teaching method for years to come in my classroom, and teaching the method to other coworkers as well.